It has been the practice in the prior art to provide backup power for maintaining telephone service to subscribers in the event of a commercial power supply failure. Such has required the sizing of backup power generators to meet the electrical loading requirements of the required number of subscribers.
Recent developments, however, have led to the integration of other services such as broadband video with narrowband voice communications over telephone lines. In the event of a power failure in that context, there is no need to maintain the broadband and other services since the commercial power supply feeding the equipment utilizing such services will be inoperative. Therefore, these broadband services may be considered as nonessential loads.